


Bottle

by bikelock28



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alcohol, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Aurors, Baby Teddy Lupin, Black Family Drama (Harry Potter), Black Family Madness (Harry Potter), Black Family-centric (Harry Potter), Book 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Canon Compliant, Dark Mark (Harry Potter), Death Eaters, Drinking, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hogwarts, Malfoy Manor, Mother-Son Relationship, Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, POV Bellatrix Black Lestrange, POV Female Character, POV Male Character, POV Multiple, POV Narcissa Black Malfoy, POV Nymphadora Tonks, POV Sirius Black, POV Third Person, POV Walburga Black, Pre-Canon, Quidditch, Sirius Black & James Potter Friendship, Sirius Black's Flying Motorbike, Sister-Sister Relationship, Sisters, The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, Underage Drinking, Walburga Black's A+ Parenting, Wine, newts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:42:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25905271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bikelock28/pseuds/bikelock28
Summary: A series of vignettes about the Black family and their relationships with alcohol. Final chapter now up.
Relationships: Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody & Nymphadora Tonks, Alphard Black & Cygnus Black, Alphard Black & Cygnus Black & Walburga Black, Alphard Black & Walburga Black, Andromeda Black Tonks & Nymphadora Tonks, Andromeda Black Tonks/Ted Tonks, Bellatrix Black Lestrange & Andromeda Black Tonks, Bellatrix Black Lestrange & Narcissa Black Malfoy, Bellatrix Black Lestrange & Narcissa Black Malfoy & Andromeda Black Tonks, Bellatrix Black Lestrange & Rodolphus Lestrange, Bellatrix Black Lestrange/Narcissa Black Malfoy, Bellatrix Black Lestrange/Rabastan Lestrange/Rodolphus Lestrange, Bellatrix Black Lestrange/Rodolphus Lestrange, Bellatrix Black Lestrange/Voldemort, Cygnus Black & Walburga Black, Draco Malfoy & Lucius Malfoy & Narcissa Black Malfoy, Draco Malfoy & Narcissa Black Malfoy, Orion Black & Regulus Black & Sirius Black & Walburga Black, Orion Black/Walburga Black, Rabastan Lestrange & Rodolphus Lestrange, Regulus Black & Sirius Black, Regulus Black & Sirius Black & Walburga Black, Sirius Black & Buckbeak, Sirius Black & Remus Lupin & Peter Pettigrew & James Potter, Sirius Black & Walburga Black, Teddy Lupin & Andromeda Black Tonks
Comments: 16
Kudos: 33





	1. Red Wine

**Author's Note:**

> This is a series of vignettes about the Black family and their relationships with alcohol. This story is set in the canon universe and there will be seven chapters. I hope you enjoy, and please remember to review.
> 
> Warnings for this fic: Alcohol addiction and misuse. Underage drinking. FASDs. Discrimination, misinformation and slurs regarding FASDs and learning disabilities. Body issues. Swearing. Sadness and angst. Vomiting. Gambling. Death Eater activities including torture. Allusions to child abuse. A scene of fairly intrusive medical examination.

_Kvitsøy, Norway_

_1994_

For the first time in thirteen years, Sirius Black is drunk. He's grubby and sweaty, alone in a wood, and with only a hippogriff for company. He doesn't know the time and is barely sure of the date. Sirius is not sure what country he is in. But he is happier than he was been since before he went to prison. Last night he lost Peter but he kept Harry safe, and Harry's safety is more important than anything. More than Remus, more than Sirius clearing his own name.

Thanks to Harry, Sirius escaped. Once Buckbeak had launched off the West Tower, the hippogriff had flown East, straight out over the North Sea. They flew for hours, Sirius' heart battering his ribcage the all the way. The feeling of having escaped was exhilarating and overwhelming. When he'd swam from Azkaban almost a year before, Sirius' head had been filled with _Peter, Peter, Harry Harry. Find Harry, find the rat, protect Harry, kill the rat_. But this time there was nothing to aim for. All he had to do was fly. Buckbeak tired eventually, wings flapping slower and head drooping, until finally land appeared in sight. Once they were close enough Buckbeak swooped lower, landing in a clearing in a patch of woodland. Sirius slid of the hippogriff's back and managed to turn into the dog before flopping onto the ground. He sprawled there for a long time, head feeling both buzzing and gloriously empty. Eventually, Sirius hauled himself into the trees and beckoned Buckbeak to follow him, and together they collapsed into sleep.

Sirius was awoken this morning by Buckbeak flapping and squawking. The hippogriff hadn't been fed for days- what was the point of feeding a hippogriff condemned to death?- and the long flight had exhausted him. Sirius and Buckbeak walked through the woods and although birds were circling overhead, there weren't voles or stoats to catch on the forest floor. A few times, Sirius heard human voices in a language he didn't understand. He'd shepherded Buckbeak away from them, but once the search for sustenance in the forest proved futile, Sirius knew that the only thing for it would be to follow the voices. He snuffled and barked at Buckbeak to stay hidden, lowered his nose to the ground, and tracked the human scent through the woodland. He found boot-marks which led to the edge of the woods, onto a pathway and eventually to a red-brick building with three cars parked outside and a sign swinging from a beam above the door. Although Sirius couldn't understand the writing on the sign, he could tell that the building was a pub. Sirius felt a strange desire to laugh; he was in the middle of nowhere in an unknown country, hours after he'd reunited with Harry and Remus and nearly been given the Dementor's Kiss. And here was a quaint little tavern. Having trekked through England to Harry and then to Scotland to track down Peter, Sirius knew how to steal from pubs and cafes. He stayed hidden in the woods, watching the pub until the last person left, locked the door and drove away. Sirius waited a while longer, then made his break. He galloped across the carpark, turned back into a man, unlocked the pub door with his wand, and slunk inside. It was dark, so Sirius cast _lumos_ and clamped his wand between his teeth. The pub was swankier than he'd expected from the outside, and Sirius wanted to take time to sit on the plush seats (he'd barely used a chair for a year, and he hadn't touched a cushion since before he went to prison), run his hands across the shiny wood of the bar, or grab a newspaper to try to work out where the hell he was. But there wasn't time. He headed behind the bar to find the kitchen, shoved open the door, and made a beeline to the fridge. Inside, there was a packet of chicken breasts, which Sirius grabbed for Buckbeak, plus a couple of pre-made hamburgers he could warm up for himself. Sirius shoved them into his pockets and snatched a packet of crisps from the shelf. He hurried out of the kitchen and back through the bar, but before he could leave again something stopped him. He was in a pub, for Merlin's sake. Sirius leaned over the bar towards the bottle-rack, yanked out a bottle of a red wine, and raced outside.

He rushed back to into the forest and followed his own dog tracks back the way he'd come. It was harder as a man than a dog because there wasn't a scent to follow, but eventually Sirius found his way back to Buckbeak. He threw the chicken at him, and hippogriff immediately tore at the packaging and gulped down the meat. Sirius scoffed the packet of crisps, licked the salt from his fingers and then from the packet. He uncorked the wine bottle and took a deep sniff. Thirteen years and he hadn't had a sip. Alcohol hadn't been on the menu in Azkaban, and for the past year Sirius hadn't wanted to distract himself with drinking. Sirius smiled happily- God, he'd missed that smell. Sirius threw his head back and tipped the wine down his throat. He'd missed the taste more than the smell, though with red wine smell and taste blurred into one another. The rich, heavy fruitiness. The sweet, spicy sharpness. Sirius finished the bottle quickly, and now he's buzzing on a cloud of giddy drunkenness. He's free.

Sirius had always loved red wine. As a boy, the first booze he tried was absinthe. Creeping around in his parents' wine cellar, Sirius had been enticed by the lurid neon blue of absinthe, though when he tried to drink it the taste was too strong, and he spat it back into the bottle (although that gave Sirius a sense of satisfaction, and he opened up the other bottles to spit in them too). By the time Sirius was twelve, he decided that it was time to stop being a wimp and start drinking properly. He'd spent a term at Hogwarts, so he knew what it was like to escape from this family. He had friends and a reputation and he wasn't a little boy anymore. A few nights into the Christmas holiday, Sirius tiptoed down to the wine cellar and cracked open a bottle of red wine (everything on the spirit shelf might be as hard to swallow as absinthe had been, and white wine was the colour of piss). The deep, acidic taste made him shudder, but Sirius reminded himself that he wasn't a baby. Finishing this bottle would get one over on his parents, and impress the boys at school. Plus, being drunk looked like fun. Sirius kept drinking until he'd emptied the wine from the bottleneck, then until it was down below the top of the label. He felt exhilarated when the cellar began to wobble and swim. When Sirius stood up his body lurched, and when he waved an hand in front of his face it he seemed to have fifteen fingers. Sirius giggled. His head felt heavy and light at the same time. When Sirius put the bottle back on the shelf and walked back upstairs, his feet slipped on the steps and his head lolled. It was thrilling. Back in bed, he burst into laughter so hard he had to stuff his face into his duvet.

A couple of nights later, Sirius slunk back to the cellar to finish the bottle, and when the holidays ended he stashed a couple of bottles in his trunk to take back to school. It was easy to persuade his new mates to join in: "Peter, you're not a chicken, are you?", "Okay, Potter: I _dare_ you", "I thought you _wanted_ to be our friend, Lupin". James vomited the first time he drank wine, which made them all chortle. By Sirius' second year, he and James had worked out how to steal from the school kitchens. They tried vodka, Firewhiskey, beer brandy and Chardonnay, and at the end of term they liberated a bottle of champagne. But Sirius always favoured red. He liked how adult and sophisticated he looked and felt drinking red wine. He liked he woozy type of drunk it made him, and how it made stress blur into unimportance. He learned to like the sour fruity taste of it. He liked how it made him braver when teasing his friends or sneaking out or jumping off the greenhouse rooves. Hogwarts was fun, and being drunk made it more fun.

On visits to Hogsmeade, Sirius would ask for a glass of wine in the Three Broomsticks. He looked and sounded older than he was, but the trouble with having a reputation at Hogwarts was that it got you a reputation in Hogsmeade too.

"You're Orion Black's boy," Madam Rosmerta accused.

"You're very distracting," Sirius replied, fluttering his eyelashes. 

"Professor McGonagall said you'd be down here,"

"I've heard it's the spot to be,"

"She also said you're thirteen,"

"I'm old for my age," Sirius assured her.

"Sorry, we don't serve schoolchildren," Madam Rosmerta told him with a tightly sweet smile, "Go back to your little friends,"

Sirius scowled and stomped away, while the rest of the Marauders cackled and hooted from their table.

By fourth-year, Sirius started keeping a bottle of wine in his bedside drawer for bad days and for nights when he couldn't sleep. He knew he drank more than his friends did, even before Remus timidly pointed it out. But so what? It wasn't an addiction; Sirius wasn't off his face _every day_. He never turned up to an exam drunk, and hardly ever a lesson. If he _was_ drunk during school hours, it was only because Prongs and Wormtail dared him. Sirius had a stronger stomach than his lightweight mates and besides, the other Marauders didn't have Sirius' family, so they didn't know stress like he did. Towards the end of each term, when he knew he'd be going home soon, Sirius drank more and drank faster. It made him feel brave enough to try bigger dares- shout even louder, jump off something even higher, chat up a girl even older- and to be crueller towards people who crossed him. It felt good.

Back at Grimmauld Place, Sirius would drink half a bottle or more on most evenings, though he'd become so surly and monosyllabic with his family that they couldn't tell he when he was hungover. It took until fourth year for Mother to notice that he'd been stealing from the cellar. She raged and ranted at him, but Sirius didn't care about Mother's tantrums anymore, and the lock she put on the cellar door could be easily unlocked by the knife Wormtail had bought Sirius for his birthday.

The following year, Sirius left Grimmauld Place for good. It had never been his home and now it ever would be again. He was done with his family's bigotry and their patheticness and he was done being made an example of in front of his baby brother and his cousins. He _really_ wasn't a little boy anymore, and he could choose to get out. Sirius drank less once he moved in with Prongs. Not because escaping from his family made him not need wine anymore, but because he had to be on his best behaviour with James' family. The Potters were kind, but they were still _parents,_ and Sirius wasn't of age yet so Mr and Mrs Potter could have sent him back to Grimmauld Place. Sirius had to be perfect in front of them, which included not looking like alcoholic layabout or an adrenaline drunkie. There was still plenty of drinking to be done at school though. As the Marauders got older more of their friends started to drink alcohol too, which made Sirius feel disappointingly less of a rebel, though he liked being able to teach his classmates about different types of booze. Plus, since he'd been drinking more and stronger for longer, Sirius could drink most of his peers under the table, and he liked to think that he was growing out of hangovers. Once NEWTs were over, he and Prongs threw parties every night until the end of term, and on the last Hogsmeade weekend Sirius finally persuaded Madam Rosmerta to serve him a glass of wine.

Life got more complicated when Sirius and his friends left Hogwarts. The real world was exhausting and perplexing, not to mention it cost a fortune. Sirius realised how reliant he'd been on his parents' money, and even the sum Uncle Alphard had left him didn't go far when it came to buying a house. Sirius bought a motorbike instead. Lots of stuff didn't matter if you looked cool (coolness was why Sirius had favoured red wine in the first place), and a flying motorbike was as cool as it got. Sirius loved swerving the motorbike through town and blasting into the sky. He loved screeching it to a halt in front of the pub where he'd meet his mates. Sirius loved pubs. Now he was a _real_ grown-up, drinking booze he'd actually _bought_ , not sneakily necking a stolen bottle of red wine. He loved leaning on the bar, flirting with bartenders and saying things like, "This round's on me," and "Make it a large one, I've had a rough day".

Joining the Order meant being surrounded by danger all the time, and facing death, too. Benjy Fenwick, Caradoc Dearborn, the Prewetts. Dying was no longer something that happened to old people and random relatives. Dying now happened young people, to _friends_ , and their deaths were sudden and violent. Sirius always drank too much at the funerals.

But there was a wedding too, and if you didn't get hammered at a wedding, then when did you? That's what Sirius reckoned, and judging by the conga line it's what James' Geordie aunties though too. Despite the War and James' parents being ill and Lily's sister being a cow and the dreadful news about the Bones family barely a fortnight before, James and Lily's wedding was a bloody fantastic day. Everybody was determined to make it fun and celebratory. It had been a proper party, and the sorrow Sirius had been feeling about James getting married melted away. Lily Evans had turned out to be quite a laugh (who'd have thought it?) and James was happy. Cheers to that.

Prongs tried to become more of a square once Lily fell pregnant, but he was easily persuaded to head down the pub or for a ride on the motorbike. Or both. Sirius needled James about being a henpecked husband and told him that he was freeing him. The bike was freedom to Sirius and, he supposed, getting drunk was too (although there was no way to say that without setting Lily and Moony off fretting). _Freedom then_ , Sirius thinks, tossing the empty wine bottle down beside him, _and freedom now._ The Ministry will be searching for him, but Dumbledore's got enough ins at the Ministry to put them off the scent. Sirius and Buckbeak will keep alert, hide, and not spend too long in one place. That way, they'll stay free. Sirius has spent thirteen years being the convict, the prisoner, the man locked in his cell staying sane by telling himself " _I'm innocent,"_ over and over. Now he can be Sirius Black again. He is not a number or a bogeyman. He is the kid sneaking into his parents' cellar to gob in their bottles, the teenager trying to flirt his way to getting served a Firewhiskey, and the young man roaring up to the pub on his flying motorbike. Flopped on a grubby forest floor, in an unknown country with an escaped hippogriff and a bellyful of red wine, Sirius feels more like that person than he has done for thirteen years.


	2. Tequila

_Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Scotland_

_1991_

Tonks climbs onto the stool to reach the top level of the _Bavarian Magical History 1313-1451_ shelf. Bavarian History is so tedious that even Professor Binns stopped teaching it a couple of years ago, so nobody comes to take books from this shelf anymore. Plus, it's too near the window for any library canoodlers to attempt to get off with each other near (Tonks knows this from experience). Even Madam Pince doesn't bother to patrol here much. So Tonks is pretty confident that nobody's going to find out about the bottle of tequila she's keeping on the top shelf.

Tonks grabs the bottle by the neck, jumps down from the stool and wedges herself back under the window ledge, next to her jotter and her stack of revision textbooks. She unscrews the lid from the bottle and gulps down a glug. Until recently, tequila had burned her throat, and it had tasted of parties in the common room, of Friday evenings necking alcohol nicked from the kitchens, and of Summer evenings spent mucking about with her teenage Muggle neighbours by the banks of the Irwell. Nowadays she doesn't notice the burn, and the tequila tastes of anxiety, tension and fear. The genuine terror of not making it in to Auror training, and of all this hard work going to waste. And it could well, couldn't it? It's not as if Tonks is exactly what the Auror department are looking for. Everyone knows her mother's maiden name and everyone knows who her auntie is. Mr Moody's the _reason_ Bellatrix Lestrange is in prison. Nowadays, Tonks' head echoes with thoughts about that: _As if Mr Moody's going to want you anywhere near the Minister of Magic, near confidential information, near people who are in danger. Your family's why_ _people are in danger._ It isn't doubt because it's true. Sometimes the unfairness of it all makes her cry. Tonks takes another sip from the bottle. _Even without Mum's family, they won't want you for_ you _either. The girl who can change her face? That's not suspicious at all._

She'd had her Auror assessment day just after the Christmas holidays. There'd been three hours of written tests, then a memory exercise, then route-planning, then a duel. Next, they'd obliviated Tonks' memories of ever being in a car, taken her to the carpark, and given her half an hour to work out how to drive a Fiat 500. Lunchtime had finally been at four in the afternoon, and she'd been given fifteen minutes. Tonks' interview was scheduled for five o'clock, but before that there had been a medical examination. She thought that that would be the one assessment where she knew what to expect: a Healer appointment with some additional physical tests. It looked like being the simplest part of the day. And it had been, until the Healer witch had put her pen down and said:

"Sit down, Miss Tonks. We have a few questions to ask about your condition,"

Nobody had ever called it a "condition" before. Tonks reckons she should have known then that the appointment was going to be unpleasant. At first it was all the questions she was used to being asked: _When did you first start showing signs of being a Metamorphmagus? Do you have any relatives with a similar condition? What are the extent of your abilities?_ The more intrusive questions followed. Still stuff she'd been asked hundreds of times before, but they felt more uncomfortable in this setting with all the formal language: _Is this your natural face, Miss Tonks? To what extent can you change basic parts of your genetics? Age, gender et cetera?_ And then _: It would be most helpful if we could take photographs._ Tonks hadn't known how to say no and even if she had, she wouldn't have done. Refusing to do part of the assessment would have failed her immediately. So she let the Healer witch take out the camera and photograph her fingers and toes and torso, and her eyes and mouth and nose and ears, and she morphed the way the Healer witch told her to while she held the camera at her. _It's not intrusive_ , Tonks told herself, not even when the Healer witch then asked for samples of her hair and skin, not even when she realised that blood was coming next. She had a scab on her elbow from scuffing her arm on a wall the week before, so the Healer witch didn't even need to get the scalpel out. Tonks also knew that examination of blood for non-emergency purposes had been outlawed eight years ago. And she knew that this was clearly not an emergency purpose. The Healer witch wanted to use her blood to examine, and to see if it could be replicated to put in a potion and sell as an alternative to Polyjuice. She was treating her like an experiment or a quarry to mine in the hope of finding something useful. Tonks knew all that as she picked the scab off her arm and squeezed the blood out into a vial, but she did it anyway. She doubted that she had a choice.

"Thank you, Miss Tonks. That's been most helpful. Best of luck with your application," said the Healer witch, smiling.

 _They don't want you as an Auror,_ Tonks had fumed to herself, leaving the room and following the bloke who was chaperoning her on the assessment day upstairs, _they only brought you here today to study you. Why did you think this application worth bothering with? You're a freak from a family of_ _psychopaths. Mr Moody's never going to want you._ For the first time, Tonks wished she wasn't a Metamorphmagus. This had been a taste of the real world, and in the real world cool abilities were a hindrance. She'd spent years believing she was special. Why the hell had she thought she was special?

The medical exam left her shaken, but she got through the interview and the rest of the assessment day, finally leaving at eleven at night. The day hadn't been a catastrophe but it had been gruelling and knackering, even discounting the Healer witch's intrusion. And it had brought home the fact that this long-held ambition to become an Auror was ludicrous, a childish fantasy which she should have let go years ago because she'd never get in, not with her family and her face. When Tonks flooed back to school, everyone in the common room had clamoured to ask her what it had all been like. Her friends had laid on a tableful of crisps, rainbow cake and chocolate frogs, with a few bottles of Butterbeer and tequila ready beside it.

"I can't stay," Tonks had told them faintly, "I have to work,"

Everything was so stacked against her that she can't afford to drop a mark, not even a mark. It'll have to be a hundred per cents across the board.

"What?" her friends protested.

"You just got back!"

"It's nearly midnight!"

"At least tell us how it went?"

"Dunno," Tonks mumbled, "I'm sorry, I need to go to the library. Did you collect my work for me, Mick?"

She'd asked Mickey to pick up her work from her teachers for the day.

"Yeah, but…" murmured Mickey.

"Just give it to me," Tonks huffed.

Looking uncertain, Mickey had handed over a batch of parchments.

"Thanks. I'll see you all in the morning, yeah? Wanna get this done first,"

"You look need food," pestered Aisling, holding out a packet of crisps.

"It's fine," Tonks assured her, "I'll take this instead,"

She grabbed a bottle of tequila and headed up to the library.

That was in January. It's May now, three weeks until NEWT exams begin. Tonks isn't sure how many times in the last three months she's cast a replenishing charm on the tequila bottle. She'd like to keep drinking tonight, though instead she spins the lid back on the bottleneck. It's impossible to revise drunk, and she can't waste a morning nursing a hangover when she should be working. That's how Tonks knows that she doesn't have a drink _problem._ People who are addicted to alcohol can't stop drinking, and she can and _does_. It's totally under control. She hasn't told her friends, but only because they're fretting about her already on top of stressing about their own exams. Tonks casts _wingargium leviosa_ on the bottle to send it back up to the shelf. Then she puts a charm on the shelf's books so that they shuffle in front of the bottle to hide it.

NEWTs start three weeks from today. Thirteen days after that until the final exam, when it all ends. Thirty-four days until this is over. It's something to aim for, but it's also terrifying, because in thirty-four days she either will or won't have done well enough to be accepted into Auror training. In thirty-four days it'll be out of Tonks' control. But in thirty-four days there'll be a blow-out party by the lake, and she can get properly drunk, _happily_ drunk, drunk like normal eighteen-year-olds are supposed to.

She hopes that the tequila will still burn then.


	3. Vodka

_Malfoy Manor, Wiltshire, England_

_1997_

She did not anticipate having to be strong. Ever since she was a little girl, Narcissa had wanted to be a wife and to run a home, to be spoilt by her husband and to spoil her children. She had dreamed of beautiful dresses and expensive jewellery, fancy parties and a lifetime of leisure. She would pursue her interests, attend events, and not have to concern herself with the tedium of finances or a job. Bellatrix had always scorned this dream. She sneered that Narcissa was frivolous and unambitious. Bella claimed it was pathetic of Cissy to want a man to make all her decisions for her. Narcissa didn’t care.

She had married a man who was composed, commanding and controlled, and the dream became, for the most part, a reality. Lucius was the man about town, the man to speak and impress. He made the money and the decisions. Narcissa stayed home and kept their house comfortable and tidy. She visited friends, entertained guests, and made polite conversation. She wore exquisite jewellery her husband bought for her, and she dazzled at parties in elegant frocks. She organised lessons, activities and friends for Draco in the years before he had started Hogwarts. Narcissa adored her boy, a perfect blend of herself and Lucius. She relished watching Draco grow and learn, and she loved him as a person too. He was academic, engaging and full of Slytherin wiliness. He was witty, too, and his observations and one-liners frequently made Cissy titter out loud (though she usually tried to avoid doing so in public, as she did not like the way her face looked when laughing).

A year ago, Narcissa’s settled contentment was sent sprawling. Lucius was sent to Azkaban, potentially forever. Narcissa barely had time to despair over that, however, because Draco was manipulated, bewildered and alone, assigned the impossible task of killing Albus Dumbledore. Narcissa knew he could not succeed. Dumbledore, though a fool, was no match for a sixteen-year-old. She could offer nothing in assistance as Draco’s letters from school became increasingly brief and evasive. All Narcissa could do was try to be strong and maintain normality at home until, she had hoped, a reprieve came. And it had, in the form of Severus Snape. Nobody has explained the events of Dumbledore’s murder to Narcissa, though from what she can gather, Draco lost his nerve and Snape arrived in time to do the job for him (there are many perplexing elements of this story, which Cissy has noticed though not had time to dwell on). Snape is now the Dark Lord’s right-hand man, and the Malfoys have lost favour.

Narcissa could not rejoice when, a few weeks ago, her husband and son both returned home to her. They are both too changed for their homecoming to be a source of relief. No longer does Lucius Malfoy swagger and strut. Her husband has lost his control, command and composure. He struggles to manage his nerves, make decisions, and react sensibly. Draco, once so similar to his father in poise and self-assurance, is now like him in timidity. He was almost a man, yet has regressed to a frightened child. What is worse, the Dark Lord has adopted Malfoy Manor as headquarters. The week after Lucius and Draco arrived home, Severus had written to inform Lucius that their Master would be using Malfoy Manor. The letter had not been a request, nor had it been a demand. Lucius was not being asked or commanded- he was being informed of a decision which had already been made. He had been too overwhelmed to understand the letter fully, so Narcissa had to reply. Since then, the Dark Lord has held meetings in her home two or three times a week. Some evenings, only a handful of his followers attend. Other meetings, such as tonight, include almost all the Dark Lord’s Death Eaters. Narcissa has met most of the Dark Lord’s followers before, and many have visited her home socially. Death Eater meetings, however, are different. There is a solemn weight to them, occasionally interrupted by a snide joke. These always catch Narcissa by surprise, making her jump and squirm, then force a hasty laugh of her own. She does not like being in this world of men. There are only a few female Death Eaters, though Narcissa’s sister has proved herself one of the loyalest of all the Dark Lord’s followers. Cissy detests watching Bellatrix lean across the table towards the Dark Lord, eyes glued to him and face flushing when he looks at her. Bella’s expression as she gazes at the Dark Lord makes Narcissa feels indecent and unclean. Unclean too is the presence of the werewolf in Narcissa’s home. Cissy could vomit at the sight of Greyback so near to Draco, and she has seen Draco shudder at his closeness too. Such a beast does not belong in a house like Malfoy Manor though Narcissa has no choice now but to let him in. Wormtail makes Cissy’s skin crawl, too. Wheezy and squeaky little man. Narcissa knows her history well enough to know that “Pettigrew” has never been a pureblood name. He does not deserve to be here.

More terrifying than Wormtail, Greyback or Bella is the Dark Lord himself. Until recently, Narcissa has only met him a handful of times. She refused to take the Dark Mark when Bellatrix and Lucius did. She did not want the involvement or responsibility. Narcissa supported Death Eater activities of course, though she did not want to partake in them herself. It was man’s work, and Cissy found Bella’s relish of it unbecoming. Privately, she was also too afraid to become a Death Eater. She didn’t want the pain of the Mark or the infamy of being known as a Death Eater. Moreover, she didn’t want to be part of the Dark Lord’s inner circle. The few times Cissy been near him, he had made her skin cold and crawling. The softness of his voice was intimidating, all the more so as it came out of that inhuman, snake-like face. Narcissa had never wanted to be in close proximity to the Dark Lord or the danger he brought, and in many ways his fourteen-year absence had been a relief. Though Narcissa never voiced that aloud, not even to her husband.

The Dark Lord is unavoidable now her home is his headquarters. He strides through her front door (he does not have to. He could apparate in, and Narcissa knows that he uses the formal entrance as a sign of dominance over her family. As if he is showing that their home is now his property). The snake follows him through their rooms. The Dark Lord uses Narcissa’s chairs and crockery, and he holds court at her drawing room table. His meetings show, more than anything else, how reduced Draco and Lucius have become. Lucius withers and sweats under the Dark Lord’s gaze. Draco twitches and makes a fool of himself, spilling his goblet and scraping his chair. Narcissa is now required to show not only strength, but leadership. For the sake of Lucius and Draco, Narcissa attends the meetings, and she must force herself to be strong for them and not waver under the Dark Lord’s red gaze. Her heart screams in her chest when she has to look him in the eye. When the Dark Lord decides he is too furious at the Malfoys to pay them attention or speak directly too them, Narcissa almost feels relieved at Draco and Lucius’ failures. _She_ is now her family’s protector. It is not a responsibility Cissy was prepared for, and she is unsure how to cope with it.

She has started drinking.

Despite the constant presence of alcohol at home, at parties, and at Ministry events she used to accompany Lucius to, Cissy has never been much of a drinker herself. Wine, cider and beer are fattening, and the latter two are distastefully lower-class. Firewhiskey tastes too hot for Narcissa’s liking. She has always preferred cold to hot, ice to fire. She distrusts cocktails. How does one know how much alcohol was in them? Narcissa dislikes the indignity and lack of control in drunkenness. For years, Narcissa had has one or two alcoholic drinks at parties, then spent the rest of the evening sipping tonic and claiming it contained gin, or drinking cranberry juice she told people was wine. However, a few weeks ago when preparing for the Dark Lord’s first visit to their home, Narcissa found herself in the pantry. She’d been searching for Wovvo, the house elf (a useless creature, and frightened witless by news of the Dark Lord’s visit) who was nowhere to be found. A shelf at the top of the pantry had caught Narcissa’s eye. Their shelf of spirits. Wines were kept downstairs in the cellar, though Lucius had one told Narcissa that spirits were better kept at room temperature. Narcissa reached up to the shelf and grabbed a bottle. She read the label to find that it was a limited brand of Transylvanian vodka. She’d almost unscrewed the cap when she stopped herself. _What are you doing? This is not a time for drinking. This not to the time to lose control._ But Cissy already _had_ lost control. This could hardly get worse, could it? Besides, Narcissa had felt a foreknowledge that she would not get drunk, even if she had wanted to. The mix of nerves, conviction and terror was sickening enough. She took a glass from the kitchen shelf and poured herself an inch of liquid. Cissy picked it up and swirled it, watching the vodka splosh from side to side the glass. Then she took a sip. Narcissa hadn’t drunk vodka in years, so the taste made her grimace. But it also felt galvanising. Cissy took another couple of sips to finish the glass, then she put the bottle back on the shelf and cleaned the glass with a charm.

Since then, Narcissa has drunk a measure of vodka every day, two or three times. She drinks after Death Eater meetings too, twitching and sweating as the terror she has kept inside throughout the meeting bursts out. She feels breathless and woozy and her head throbs. Often, she sobs into her vodka. Tonight, the Dark Lord is holding a meeting at Malfoy Manor, with everybody in attendance. Vital information will be shared and discussed, and Narcissa hopes that it does not concern another prisoner. Ollivander, the wandmaker, has been kept in her basement since the Dark Lord’s first visit. Narcissa despises having the wandmaker here, wailing and beating the walls every night. She has heard rumours of the Mudblood Studies teacher from Hogwarts going missing, and hopes that she will not be asked to keep her prisoner here as well.

Regardless of what happens tonight, Narcissa must be alert and steady. She must imperceptibly guide her husband and son. The Dark Lord will be displeased if he believes Lucius has lost his conviction or his loyalty, and Lucius will be humiliated if the Dark Lord finds out it is Narcissa who is helping him and giving him hints about what to say. Nariccsa must lead, but appear not to be leading. She must keep an emotionless face, whatever the Dark Lord wants from her (not another task for Draco, _please_ not another task for Draco. Narcissa is almost pleased that he failed the first one so spectacularly, as it means the Dark Lord is unlikely to ask anything of him again. Isn’t it?). She will act as the demure housewife she used to be before everything went so catastrophically wrong. She will need to muster all of her subtlety, courage and poise. She will need a drink. Narcissa pours herself a glass of vodka- as the weeks have gone on and her tolerance to alcohol increases, she has been serving herself larger measures. She has been sipping less and slamming more. She slams now, gulping the vodka in one and banging the glass back onto the counter. Until recently Narcissa would never have dreamt of creating such a loud, sudden, unfeminine noise with the slam of the glass. Now, she enjoys it. Banging the glass shows she is _here_ and she _can_ make an impact.

The Dark Lord’s visits have petrified Wovvo into perfect obedience, so the drawing room is spotless. All the places are set, the prisoner is fed, and the cellar is swept in case the Dark Lord requires another captive stored there. Bellatrix will arrive first, ostensibly to for dinner with Narcisssa and Lucius, though in reality Naricssa knows that her sister is actually coming to gloat. To rub it in the Malfoys’ noses that _she_ is the Dark Lord’s favourite. Over the years, Narcissa has felt love, fear, pity, loss, envy, horror and exasperation towards her big sister, though she has never disliked her as much as she does now. Bellatrix regards Narcissa’s family with disdain. Many of the Dark Lord’s servants do too. Which is why it is even more vital that Narcissa maintains control tonight. She will summon her wits and her conviction, and perform her strength discreetly. She did not anticipate or want this, but she must do it to protect her family. Keeping Draco shielded from harm is all that matters. Narcissa can do anything if it keeps Draco safe.

She glances at the clock; a large and ornate antique piece inherited from Lucius’ grandmother. Naricssa has always liked that clock, though of late its relentless ticking has taunted her. Time marches on, no matter how much Naricssa wishes it would slow down or stop, give her more time to compose herself, or perhaps enough time to escape with her family to get away from this madness. But it will not. The time is ten to eight. Bellatrix will be here soon, and their other guests and the Dark Lord will arrive not long after that.

Narcissa takes another shot.


	4. Rum

_Caistor, Lincolnshire, England_

_1974_

“She’s a rum girl, that Bellatrix Black,”

Not in the alcoholic sense. “Rum” as in eccentric. Bella was strange and everybody knew it. She was intense and easily-agitated. She struggled to control her temper. For an afternoon when her grandparents or Father’s colleagues visited, Bellatrix could manage to behave prim, proper and ladylike. Maintaining the façade was exhausting, however, and by the end of the afternoon Bella felt suffocated. As the oldest sister she was expected to set an example, but Cissy was better at smiling and simpering and sucking up. Bellatrix called her a crawler and a wimp, and mimicked the way her youngest sister flounced and flirted. But Bella only taunted because she was jealous that she would never possess Narcissa’s charm.

Bellatrix didn’t fit in at school either. She found the girls in her dormitory as frivolous as her baby sister, not to mention stupid. They lacked brains and ambition. Bella knew she was twice as clever as her classmates, and her school marks proved it. In the evenings, when most of the Slytherins chatted and sniggered and flirted in the common room, Bella sat apart, feeling both envious and scornful of their companionship. She whispered to herself that she would rise above them all. She would be richer and bolder. She would have more money, notoriety and power. Her classmates names would be forgotten but she, Bellatrix Black, would be infamous.

But she wasn’t infamous yet, and she couldn’t stop the rumours. The Slytherin girls would tell their parents about Bella Black’s wild hair and uneven temper. They gossiped about how she didn’t like make-up, made jokes they didn’t understand, and spent her evenings alone practising increasingly powerful spells. Bellatrix had believed that being a Black placed her above such slander- who would dare gossip about the Blacks? But in reality it didn’t work that way, and the whispers continued to hound her.

“She’s a weirdo,”

“I’ve heard she eats her meat raw,”

“The eldest daughter? Yes, queer little thing. Very intense,”

“All that money and it couldn’t buy her a sense of humour,”

“My brother told me she swims naked with the giant squid,”

“She’s a rum girl, that Bellatrix Black,”

Actual rum, the alcoholic sort, could have been an escape. Plenty of Bellatrix’s family drank too much. They all knew but nobody mentioned it. As a result, Bella had grown up with a dual fascination and fear of alcohol. Grandpapa Rosier let her have sips from his glass occasionally, though Bellatrix didn’t like the taste. Grandpapa promised she’d grow into it, but Bella never did. She’d have a drink at weddings or family parties (Bellatrix was never invited to parties by girls her own age. She’d assumed that her surname was enough to get her an invitation but, embarrassingly, Cissy would be asked it come in Bella’s place), but she never particularly enjoyed drinking or getting drunk. Bella preferred to pour her red wine down her wrists, like blood.

Father managed to secure her a betrothal to Rodolphus Lestrange. The Lestrange boys had been a few years older than Bella at school, and they’d both been Beaters for the Slytherin Quidditch team. Roddy was the elder of the two. He was tall and athletic, and Bellatrix had to admit that she found him physically desirable. However, as she got to know him better, she learnt that Rodolphus Lestrange lacked charm. That was a disappointment as Bella had hoped for a husband with charm, to make up for her own lack of it. She would move in with the Lestranges after her marriage, and she hadn’t looked forward to living the wilds of the Lincolnshire Wolds. Moreover, Rodolphus was dull. Bellatrix found herself drinking more alcohol during their courtship and engagement to make the evenings spent listening to Roddy prattle on about horses and hunting pass by faster. Though she was never reliant on the bottle like her Aunt Walburga was.

By the time of her wedding, Bellatrix had found a better type of intoxication, more potent than any brand of rum or Firewhiskey. Bella had found the Dark Lord. He’d been a looming figure in her childhood and adolescence, held in awe by her family. Bella had developed an interest in the Dark Lord’s work during school (many of her peers’ parents were followers) and as an adult it became an obsession. She relished reading about him in the newspapers or hearing whispers about him in Knockturn Alley. These were different whispers to the ones which had dogged Bellatrix at school; these were whispers of fear and awe. The Dark Lord was power personified. He was the mightiness that Bellatrix had always known she was destined for. His work would give Bellatrix a purpose, which she’d been lacking since leaving school. She was meant for him. Bella never loved her husband more than when he agreed to take the Mark with her. Cissy had recently become engaged to Lucius Malfoy, the son of a Death Eater who was expected to join too. Narcissa was too cowardly to take the Mark herself, and Bellatrix felt both furious and smug that she would be the only one of them to become a true follower. Like Lucius, the Lestrange’s family connections meant that they were easily persuaded to take the Mark and serve the Dark Lord too. Roddy took more convincing than Rabastan, although Bella knew how to make him obey her, and eventually he agreed. On the night that they took the Mark, Lucius and the Lestrange boys downed shots of gin before the branding. Narcissa, twisting her hands with apprehension, did too. However, when Rabatastan offered Bellatrix the bottle, she refused. This was not an anxious event like her wedding had been. Bellatrix had no nerves to steady with gin. She wanted to relish the pain of the Mark’s branding, not numb it. And when the Mark touched her skin, Bellatrix knew that she had been right.

That was three years ago now. Bellatrix had been right, too, that the Dark Lord’s service was her true calling. She has blossomed. The self-assurance which, as a Black, always belonged to Bellatrix, but which was taunted out of her at Hogwarts, has returned. She goes to bed at night smirking, knowing that she is doing right by the world and that she _excels_ as a Death Eater. Bellatrix volunteers for any task the Dark Lord requires, follows his orders to the letter, then goes further. When the Dark Lord requires a spy, Bella not only observes her target, but assumes a false identity to write to them so she can gather information directly. Bellatrix struggled with Potions at school, but now when the Dark Lord needs a potion brewed, Bellatrix makes it herself. She practises the recipe until she can brew the potion perfectly to avoid risking the Dark Lord being poisoned by a shop-bought potion. When the Dark Lord needs somebody tortured, Bella will _crucio_ the victim, then burn their house down. She especially enjoys torturing relatives in front of one another. The Dark Lord smiles contentedly when Bella tells him of the inventive length she finds to fulfil and surpass his orders. Casting the cruciatus curse sends lightening up Bellatrix’s veins. There are times when somebody has been pleading and writhing in front of her, and Bella has felt almost overwhelmed with thrill. The imperius adds more pleasure. She can make her victim do whatever she wants them to. She is chomping at the bit for her first kill, imagining what the titillation will be like when she ends a life. The greatest act of overpowering another human. Bellatrix has been waiting so long to be asked to murder that she has, a few times, considered starting alone. She has killed plenty of animals, and are Muggles really so different? She could slaughter a Muggle tramp in the dead of night and nobody would be any the wiser. Though Bella’s loyalty to the Dark Lord outweighs her desperation to kill. The Dark Lord may send her on her first Death Eater murder, and when Bellatrix returns he might know that it was not her first. Bellatrix’s Lord can tell such things about people. His wisdom knows no bounds. He knows how impatient she is to murder, and Bella suspects that he is both testing and treating her by making her wait. The pleasure, when it finally comes, will be even sweeter.

Murder aside, Bella feels fulfilled. She has found the infamy she knew she was destined for. Classmates who once gossiped about Bellatrix now ask her for favours. Some scuttle away from her on the street, and Bella feels proud to see the panic in their eyes. Bellatrix has surpassed Narcissa in power, reputation and attainment, which matter more than beauty and charm. She rarely spends time alone with Rodolphus anymore, which has improved their marriage no end. Bellatrix no longer needs to drink away dull evenings with her husband. She will not fall victim to the alcoholism which has enveloped previous generations of her family. Bellatrix’s addiction is noble and purposeful, driven by the desire to create, not escape. She and the Dark Lord are building a world they will rule together, in which Muggles are degraded and those with pure magical blood are treated with the honour they deserve.

She is no longer the queer little girl, the gossiped-about teenager, or the rum young woman who doesn’t receive invites to parties. She is renowned and feared, terrifying and merciless. Bellatrix is uncrossable and, with the Dark Lord, she is unstoppable.


	5. Firewhiskey

_12 Grimmauld Place, London, England_

_1976_

It is Walburga's fault. Outwardly, she blames the catastrophe on Dumbledore and on the Mudblood riffraff he allows into Hogwarts. She blames the staff, and her son's strange, silly, dangerous friends. Walburga blames Cygnus's estranged daughter, bad luck, the curse that her mad Granny Bulstrode had sometimes whispered was put on the Black family. Mostly, Walburga has blames Sirius himself. He's the one who'd done it. It's him who has run away.

But Walburga _made_ Sirius. She made him what it is. The responsibility for Sirius' disobedience and nastiness, his enjoyment of consorting with the wrong people and his relish in humiliating the family, his disappearance over Christmas and the shame that had brought on them- all of it is Walburga's fault. Because Walburga had drunk when she was pregnant.

At the time, she'd barely given consideration to the matter: Firewhiskey kept her stable, sane and able to cope. She couldn't give it up just because Orion had managed to put a baby in her belly. Walburga had heard that drinking alcohol during pregnancy was unwise, though she'd dismissed it as a Mudblood superstition. Now, Walburga would give all her family's galleons to have a time-turner take her back seventeen years, to knock the Firewhiskey bottles out of her hands and to warn herself what a calamity is coming if she does not stop drinking. But would seventeen years be enough? Hadn't the catastrophe been heading for Walburga years before then? The reason she _needed_ to stay stable and sane was _because_ she couldn't cope, and the reason Firewhiskey kept her that way was because it always had.

Walburga's drinking had begun not long after other things began, things that happened at night and which the man who did them swore that nobody would believe if Walburga tried to tell. He often forgot to take his glass with him when he left, and Walburga started slipping out of bed to finish the drink. The Firewhiskey was so hot that it scalded Walburga's tongue and made her eyes water. She liked the power of the sensation, though. She felt frightened of him, and braving the burn of Firewhiskey made her feel tough. She liked the feeling of getting back at him somehow. He was taking from her, so she would take this from him. When Walburga started drinking more (there was always alcohol at home, and because it was Walburga's house it didn't count as stealing), she liked that it let her drift away from the real world. It was better inside her head.

Walburga was so excited to escape home and go to Hogwarts that it didn't occur to her to smuggle any Firewhiskey into her trunk. This led to painful first term, fourteen weeks of being crabby and withdrawn from the sudden abstinence. Walburga's moodiness and agitation made the other Slytherin first-years take a dislike to her, and Walburga disliked them back. Friendships were forged in those first few weeks, and Walburga missed her opportunity. She never shared so much as a single smile with any of her dormitory-mates for the next seven years. Forgetting to bring Firewhiskey with her to school wasn't a mistake she'd make twice, though, and every term from then on, Walburga stuffed a bottle into her luggage. By the end of her second year she'd mastered refilling charms. When her dormitory-mates became teenagers and started throwing parties, Walburga would smirk smugly to herself as she watched them shiver, vomit and groan the next morning. She'd been dealing with hangovers for years, though since they hadn't invited her to the party, Walburga wouldn't be telling them the best hangover remedies.

Since her classmates viewed her as odd and volatile, it was easy for Walburga to keep her addiction a secret. Nobody paid much heed to what she did and, just in case, she kept her Firewhiskey in a water-flask. Walburga was sure not to drink too much on weekday mornings, so she was never drunk in class. She wore a heavy perfume to hide the smell of Firewhiskey. At home, keeping her secret was harder, though Walburga developed a steely, sober-looking stare for when Mother or Father spoke to her.

She'd been sober during her wedding ceremony and reception, barely touching the glass of champagne in front of her. Then, after the cake and the photographs and the excruciating first dance, Walburga explained that she was tired and would be heading upstairs. Orion didn't mind, and Walburga knew he wasn't enjoying the day much either. Orion was pleasant enough, but they both knew it was a marriage of convenience rather than love. Neither of them felt the need to be glued to one another's side all evening. Upstairs in her hotel room, Walburga opened the drinks cabinet and yanked out a Firewhiskey bottle. By the time Orion came up to bed, she had passed out, and when she woke in the morning she was still in her wedding dress and Orion was asleep beside her. He hadn't even tried to wake her up to consummate their marriage. But they'd got round to it eventually, and two years after their wedding, Walburga was expecting a baby. She wonders now if her pregnancy was not the first point at which things went wrong for Sirius, but the _last_ point at which the fiasco could have been avoided.

Her pregnancy was long and difficult, even with the help of Firewhiskey. Walburga's son, when he as born, was sturdy and beautiful. He cried fiercely, which made Walburga wince, though she felt pride at the strength of her baby's lungs. He'd be a fine Black son. They named him for Orion's grandfather, and their mutual great-grandfather. Her family and the Healers told Walburga and Orion that the baby was perfectly healthy. Now, Walburga knows that that was not true. A mistake or a lie? It's impossible to know. But Sirius is not and was never healthy. There was always something wrong with him. Walburga should have known it from his first days, when he wouldn't latch to her breast to feed, and would scream and wail with hunger. Walburga wanted to scream back at him. He flailed when she tried to dress or undress him. He kept waking up in the night: too hot, too cold, dirty nappy, bored, too cold, dirty nappy, too hot…sometimes Walburga would hiss furiously at Sirius, demanding to know why was he doing this. What did he want from her? She'd given him life, wasn't that enough? When Cygnus and Druella visited with their little girls, fussing and cooing ever them, Walburga wondered if she could love Sirius like that. He didn't appear to want to be loved. Walburga would empty another glass of Firewhiskey and assure herself that Sirius was only a few months old and surely this was a phase.

But the phase did not pass. The promised bonding did not occur, and Walburga's wilful baby grew into a recalcitrant toddler. Sirius' first word was "No". He was a bright boy, although as more and more words entered his repertoire the words "Mama," and "Dada," did not pass his lips. He did not enjoy being hugged or held by Walburga, and eventually she gave up trying.

Walburga knew she was supposed to be thrilled when, a few months after Sirius' first birthday, she found that she was pregnant again. One baby was not enough heirs for their family, and she should be pleased to be continuing the line. In actuality, Walburga's first reaction was exasperation: _not a second wailing baby who seems to hate me and everything I do_. She drank as much as normal for the first few weeks of the second pregnancy, until one afternoon when she visited Cressidia Crabbe for lunch. Although Walburga had always found Mrs Crabbe's loud voice and bell-like laugh irritating, she was so bored at home with Sirius all day, that when Cressidia's invitation arrived Walburga begged Druella to babysit Sirius. Druella reluctantly agreed, and Walburga went to visit the Crabbes. Over lunch, Cressidia handed Walburga a glass of wine, then laughed and retracted it. She apologised and offered Walburga pumpkin juice instead. Walburga felt flummoxed. Only Mudbloods believed in that nonsense, didn't they? Cressidia Crabbe was older though, and had four delightful children (the youngest was only a year older than Sirius, and Cressidia had suggested a few times that they might like to play together. Walburga was too concerned about Sirius' behaviour to accept, so she kept pretending to Mrs Crabbe that Sirius was a sickly child, too fragile for other toddlers to play with). Could Waburga's drinking be the difference between Sirius and the Crabbe children? Was it _her own fault_ that she couldn't love her son? Walburga shivered, too stunned and baffled to ask more. Cressidia must have seen her bewildered expression, and enquired if she was feeling unwell. Walburga swallowed and managed to mutter that she was recovering from morning sickness. This was a lie, although when she swallowed her pumpkin juice, she felt the taste of bile.

When she returned home to Grimmauld Place, instead of pouring herself a glass of Firewhiskey, Walburga went up to Sirius' bedroom. Many times before, Walburga had rubbed Sirius' pillow, fondled the ears of his stuffed toys, stacked and unstacked his blocks, and wondered why she couldn't love him. This time, she grabbed his toy cat and wrung it between her hands, feeling gripped by fear. What if her drinking had made her son this way? _Calm down,_ Walburga told herself, trying to overlook the fact that she usually drank Firewhiskey to calm herself down. _Consider this logically. You don't know_ for sure _that Firewhiskey made Sirius the way he is. Don't overthink this._

"Aunt Walburga, Aunt Walburga!" piped up a voice.

Walburga leapt to her feet and threw the toy cat onto Sirius' bed.

"Yes?" she called, hurrying onto the landing.

Her niece, Bellatrix, came dashing out of the drawing room. She looked up and saw Walburga leaning over the landing banister.

"Sirius is having a tantrum and Mother says you need to Floo back with me now to take him home," she reported breathlessly, "Even Andy can't calm him down. He's bitten Cissy and he's yanked his nappy off and thrown-"

"That's enough, Bellatrix," Walburga spat. She wanted smash her first into the wall. Sirius even had to interrupt her worrying about him, the selfish little brute.

"I'm coming," Walburga insisted, hurrying downstairs.

She and her niece Flooed to Cygnus and Druella's house, where Sirius was kicking and shouting. If he'd been having an angry tantrum when Bellatrix was sent to fetch Walburga, by the time they returned, Sirius had passed into a state of giddy wildness. He was toddling through Druella's house at top speed, half-naked and cackling hysterically. Walburga was familiar with the crayon-marks on the walls and damp patches on the floors, though to see them in her brother's house was humiliating. Sirius wasn't fast on his feet, but when he was in one of these moods he was difficult to catch. When Walburga eventually got her hands on him, and Flooed home, she dumped Sirius on his bedroom floor, slammed the door behind her, and pressed her forehead against the wood. _I can't do this again,_ she thought. She couldn't face having another child like Sirius, a second squalling infant ruin her body and her sleep and her sanity.

"I'll do it," she muttered aloud. She'd stop drinking. Nine months of sobriety was worth it if it spared her a lifetime of further torture. Walburga ran to her bedroom, grabbed a bottle of Firewhiskey, went to the bathroom and emptied the bottle down the sink.

In reality, Walburga's resolve didn't last long. She experienced the same exhaustion and mood-swings as she had done during that first term at Hogwarts, although now they were compounded by pregnancy hormones, morning sickness and having to take care of Sirius. Walburga started drinking again barely a week after she made her decision to stop, although she managed to limit it to a couple of times a week. It was a miserable nine months, even unhappier than Walburga's first pregnancy. Labour, when it came, was almost a relief. The child was another boy, another Black heir. Orion was pleased, though Walburga felt wary. As she held and cuddled Regulus the evening of his birth, Walburga whispered to him over and over that she hoped he was nothing like his brother.

By the time Regulus was two and Sirius four, Walburga's experiment had been proved right: her younger son was sweet and obedient, while her eldest remained over-emotional and argumentative. As the eldest brother, Sirius was supposed to be more independent, although actually he needed twice as much parenting as Regulus. Regulus could be left to play alone, whereas Sirius would climb the curtains or smear paint on the carpet. He refused to share his toys with Regulus, and he pushed, pinched, poked and punched his baby brother. Walburga and Orion had planned to get the boys a nanny, but Sirius was so badly behaved that Walburga knew she couldn't stand the embarrassment of somebody coming into their home and seeing how nasty he was. The worry made Walburga drink more, not that Orion noticed. He was so busy with work that he rarely paid attention to what Walburga was doing anymore, and Walburga was well-practised at keeping her habit a secret. Accompanying Orion to work events, alcohol helped Walburga maintain a taught smile when his colleagues enquired about their sons, or asked if she and Orion had been to any concerts or exhibitions lately. _Of course we don't do things like that,_ Walburga wanted to snap, _we don't_ do _anything together, and nor would we want to._ She and Orion had started out amicable and had become indifferent and increasingly cold. Walburga knew that her marriage would not see a third child.

Sirius' disobedience continued into childhood. He began to take extra pleasure in humiliating the family, and there was no greater humiliation than when Walburga had finally got rid of the wretched boy to school, only to learn that he'd been sorted into Gryffindor. The shock lasted for weeks. It was a mistake, an accident, Sirius' trickery. It was also, though nobody admitted aloud, proof that there _was_ something wrong with Walburga's eldest son. Walburga attempted to shift the blame onto Sirius himself, though guilt hung over her. How much could an eleven-year-old be held responsible for this? It was Walburga's fault for producing a bad Black, a faulty child.

The sorting left Walburga unable to sleep for weeks. She tossed and turned, replaying moments from the last twelve years in her head and interrogating her memories for mistakes. Had it been her fault? Was it the alcohol? One night, when she thought her head might explode from the guilt and stress, Walburga sprung out of bed, went to the library and scoured it for books on childhood deformities. Grimacing, she looked up _Alcohol_ in the index. The page it directed it to had photographs of children's faces. Their eyes were smaller than usual, their faces flatter, their lips thinner. Sirius did not look like that. He had always been an extraordinarily handsome child (people in Diagon Alley had remarked on it, until they saw him flicking his brother's ears or stuffing sweets into his pockets). Walburga read down the page. Children born from alcoholic parents, the book claimed, were simpletons. Walburga's brother Alphie was a simpleton, but these children were even more backward. They struggled to read, to remember, to tie their shoelaces. They had problems seeing, speaking and hearing. They did not understand the consequences of their actions. None of those applied to Sirius. He wasn't a simpleton- he was astute and calculating. Until the disastrous news of his sorting, one of the few good things Walburga had to say about her son was that he'd make a fine Slytherin with that cunning brain of his. His vision and hearing were perfect, and he was articulate (though he also, Walburga acknowledged grudgingly, had too much of a liking for profanity). Sirius understood the consequences of his behaviour, but he didn't care what they were. Walburga shut the book. She'd found what she needed: her drinking was _not_ the cause of Sirius' disobedience and the Firewhiskey she had drunk twelve years ago _hadn't_ touched him in the head. Her son was not deformed. He was a obnoxious hooligan who required harsher disciplining.

The same night, wrote to Professor McGonagall immediately, telling her that Sirius was a tearaway in need of a firm hand. Walburga made it clear that Professor McGonagall was not to spare Sirius punishments on account of his House and family. She wrote to Professor Slughorn too, trusting that the head of Slytherin House could be relied upon to heed her warning. But it seemed neither of them did enough, because from Sirius first term, Walburga and Orion began to receive owls: _I have had to eject Sirius from my classroom three times this month….answered back during flying lessons….a female student in his year was traumatised by one of Sirius' "ghost stories", and I have some concerns about the nature of reading material he has been exposed to at home…_ _Professor Macjewz has been unable to find his pewter ladle, and has reason to suspect…Sirius, along with James Potter, was found attempting to climb the owlery._ Misdemeanour after misdemeanour. Walburga hoped her throat would get a rest after eleven years of yelling at the boy, though she sent so many howlers that she didn't feel the difference.

Though Walburga tried to downplay the extent of Sirius' rebelliousness, the word spread. The infamy that came with being a Black did not work in Walburga's favour this time. She ensured that attack was the best form of defence, and would tell anybody who was listening what a fool Albus Dumbledore was how she didn't believe he got away with letting the Mudblood hoi polloi into school. But the numbers of Mudblood hoi polloi were growing. There were more of them opening shops and getting jobs in the Ministry, despite the Dark Lord's increasing power. Scorning Albus Dumbledore became a less popular opinion, and having a miscreant son didn't help either. Growing numbers of people found out about the sorts of trouble Sirius got into. Walburga knew that that was what Sirius wanted: he wasn't looking for mischief, he was looking to humiliate his family. And it was working. Walburga insisted to her father that Sirius had fallen in with the wrong crowd and would sort himself out eventually, though she became increasingly doubtful that he would.

When Cygnus' daughter ran away with a Mudblood, Walburga's initial reaction was not horror, but relief. Druella's offspring had committed a far greater crime than Sirius ever had. Abandoning the family to mate with a Mudblood was far worse than school detentions. When Walburga and Orion rushed over for an emergency family meeting, Walburga had to fight the desire to sneer in Cygnus' face that his perfect little family had proved rotten at the core. It was decided that news of Andromeda's disappearance should be kept as quiet as possible, and the family would explain that she had taken a job in Kazakhstan. A few weeks later, however, Narcissa reported in a tear-stained letter that Sirius had bleated the truth about his cousin to the whole school. Cygnus did not speak to Walburga for weeks, and has remained frosty towards her to this day. Walburga wanted to snap that Sirius' blabbing wasn't her fault, and that if Cygnus was really outraged by what Andromeda had done, he would step in to help Walburga stop Sirius going down the same path. But Cygnus never did.

Walburga began to fret about what would happen when Sirius left school. His marks were good, but he had no ambition for a career in Gringotts like his father, or to go into the Ministry, or to join a business. He wasn't interested in pursuing healing, Magizoology, potion-brewing, teaching or research. Sirius wasn't sporty, nor did he have a flair for turning a profit. He was creative, but Walburga knew he didn't have the discipline to write for a living. Besides, the only books and magazines Sirius was interested in were Mudblood ones. He didn't seem passionate about anything apart from causing trouble and peddling ridiculous ideas about Mudbloods. Walburga felt powerless and alone as the battle of wits twisted on between her and her oldest son.

And then he disappeared. On Christmas Day, after another blazing row, Sirius had stormed up to his bedroom, and by Boxing Day morning he was gone. He'd left no note, though his empty wardrobe and missing trunk and broomstick proved it: Sirius had run away.

Walburga has received one piece of communication from her son since: a blotched parchment which arrived on New Year's Eve, on which Sirius had scribbled _I am safe_. Walburga had forced Sirius to write enough apology letters over the years that she could tell that this was a note he had written under duress. It's almost February now, and Sirius' name has not been said out loud in Walburga's home in weeks. Regulus wrote that he'd seen his brother at Hogwarts, and Walburga had been both desperate to ask Regulus for more details, and furious at him for mentioning Sirius' name. He is no longer part of their family. He has been blasted off the family tree and Walburga will never publically mention him again. Sirius is no longer bad Black, he is no Black at all.

He is harder to expunge from her head than from the tapestry, though. Walburga keeps thinking about him- occasionally she wonders where he went on Christmas Day and if he has any money (he certainly won't receive another knut from herself and Orion). Mostly though, she thinks of Sirius and herself, and how this all is her fault. She is more sure of it than ever now. Her oldest son does not look like the children in the book's photographs, nor does he act like a simpleton- but there was something wrong from the start. Right from when he was a baby and would not take to the breast. Surely that proves that Dumbledore and outside factors are not to blame. Sirius was born this way. What's more, although his surliness eventually extended to his father, brother, cousins and the rest of their family, Sirius' disdain had _begun_ with Walburga. She was his first enemy. Babies were supposed to hate being away from their mothers, but Sirius couldn't stand to be near her. Was his body repelled by hers, the woman who poisoned him before he even took breath?

This marring of their family began with Walburga. She made Sirius what he is. She made his calamity. But, like when she was a small child in her bedroom when the things that happened to her happened, Walburga cannot tell anybody. If she wanted to, who would believe her this time? So Walburga does what she has always done, ever since she was that frightened and bewildered little girl. She opens a bottle.


	6. White Wine

_Salford, Greater Manchester, England_

_1999_

Andromeda drinks too much, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters anymore. The worst has already happened. What else can do they to her? Take the baby away? That’s for the best. Teddy deserves more than Andromeda.

On a good night, Andromeda finishes most of a bottle of wine in an evening. On a bad night, two bottles are emptied and she starts on a third. On a bad night, she curls up on the carpet where her daughter learnt to crawl, where she made love with her husband, where Remus had paced and pondered, where a teenage Sirius stood while he regaled Andromeda with the exploits he got up to with his friends. Andromeda thinks of them all, and how they are all dead. None of them are ever coming back.

Ever since Sirius went to prison, the memory of him loomed over Andromeda. It shouldn’t have been a surprise when he came crashing back into her life. Typical Sirius, barging in and turning the world upside down. The shock had been that he was innocent, and his long incarceration had been a false imprisonment. Though a disaster like that had been coming to Sirius, the cocky little bugger. They all should have known that the smirk would have been wiped off his face, although nobody could have predicted the cruelty of his comeuppance: in Azkaban for years for a crime he didn’t commit, believed by the world to have betrayed his best friends and blown up a street full of Muggles. After his escape, he’d spent a year in enforced hiding in Grimmauld Place, where Andromeda’s aunt and uncle had lived and where Sirius had grown up. The truth about Sirius’s innocence had been explained to Andromeda, and she had been permitted to see Sirius a handful of times there. He’d grumbled that if freedom meant Grimmauld Place, it was hardly better than prison. Andromeda had snapped that that couldn’t possibly be true, and Sirius had sighed that he supposed she was right, but only just. Then he’d smirked his handsome, condescending, infuriating smirk at her. Remus had been there when Sirius died, and he’d told Andromeda how her big sister had cackled and hooted as she wiped the last smirk off Sirius’ face.

Hadn’t Andromeda and Ted been cocky, too? They’d got away with eloping all those years ago. For years, Andromeda was afraid that Bella would come after her to punish her for betraying their family. It was only when Bella and her associates went to Azkaban that Andromeda let herself relax (hearing what Bellatrix had done to the Longbottom family proved that Andromeda had been right to be scared). She thought she’d truly escaped after that; started a new life with her husband and child, escaping the vicious, violent bigotry of her birth family. But all along it had been Ted who was in danger. To be a Muggle-born was less safe than being a pure-blood who married one. Andromeda had had the privilege of being able to forget that, and perhaps time had made Ted forget it too. But their downfall hadn’t been caused by overlooking the facts, and Ted’s death _hadn’t_ been inevitable. Andromeda’s husband had been murdered by thugs, and left to rot like an animal. In a few weeks it will be the first anniversary of Ted’s death, and there are still gaping holes in the information Andromeda has about what happened. She knows he died in Warwickshire, but not an exact location. The news of her husband’s death arrived on the 14th of February, but she does not know the date he died. She does not know how Ted was killed, if it was with a curse or and implement, if he was in pain, if it was a sharp and brutal death, or if it involved the humiliation and torture of which Bellatrix was fond. Andromeda does not even know who killed him.

Andromeda half wants to blame her daughter’s death on Remus, or on the Order, or even on Teddy. But that isn’t true. The only people to blame for Nymphadora’s death are Nymphadora herself, for going into that castle, and Bellatrix, who murdered her. Andromeda’s daughter and Andromeda’s sister. Her sister killed her daughter. Once, Andy loved Bellatrix. They were close as children, and even into their teenage years they’d shared their clothes and textbooks and insecurities. Later, Andromeda had pitied her. Bella had been entranced and exploited, so far down the path to the Dark Lord that she couldn’t turn back. When Andromeda had reached breaking point, she had agonised about the decision to leave her beloved big sister, and once she had made her choice and escaped with Ted, she had mourned for never seeing Bella again. Andromeda even felt sorry when Bellatrix went to prison. It was a sickening crime, but Bella must be wrong in the head to do something so heinous. She needed help. Fear of her and horror at her were mixed in with pity.

Andromeda does not pity her sister now. Now, there is only hate. You never forgive your child’s killer. You never stop hating, except it’s more than hate. It is a burning, explosive emotion, too potent and dangerous to name. And it burns even hotter when Andromeda thinks of Teddy, and how Bellatrix took his mother away from him forever. Andromeda’s grandson is ten months old now. He plays with blocks and toy owls and he likes having story books read to him. He’s handsome and giggly and clever. He is also exhausting, annoying and whiney. He’s boring. Nobody ever talks about how dull having a baby is, the endless repetition and guesswork. You never know what they want, or why, or what to can do to make it better, apart from change a nappy or shove a bottle into their mouth. But Teddy’s parents are dead and no amount of nappy-changes or bottles or toys or cuddles can change that.

The Weasleys are there for him of course. Harry Potter’s his godfather and he dotes on Teddy, and Molly’s daughter is a natural with babies. Molly adores him too, of course. She can distinguish his various cries, and make him laugh, and whip up remedies and meals and everything else he needs. Teddy’s happy when he’s at Molly Wealsey’s house. Molly’s used to taking in other people’s children, and on a bad night Andromeda is tempted to floo to the Weasley’s house with Teddy and tell Molly: _“You have him. I’m not what Teddy needs. You know how to raise a baby and you’ve lost one of your own, so take mine. Give this boy parents and siblings and happiness, and everything which I am incapable of providing”_. But selfishness prevents her from doing so. Teddy would be better off with Molly Weasley, but if Andromeda gives him away she’ll have lost absolutely everything. Her grief won’t count anymore if she lets Teddy go. What sort of bereaved parent would she be if she willingly gives away another child?

Bad nights make Andromeda feel dizzy and bruised from the past few years. It had happened so fast and relentlessly, one loss after the other. Sirius back and then dead, Ted here then gone then dead, Nymphadora married then having Teddy then dead. Sometimes the horror of it all is a physical pain. The heinousness of the nepoticide still flabbergasts her: her sister killed her daughter, her sister killed her daughter. She drinks because the haze and blur of drunkenness can make the whiplash of the last three less jarring.

On a bad night, Andromeda is furious at her family. Ted and Remus and Nymphadora left her. They all ran off when they could have stayed. She could have kept them safe. The lot of them were too headstrong. Her husband had been fooled by a noble attempt to protect his family. _Well Ted, look how well that had turned out._ Nymphadora spent too much time with Gryffindors; she wanted to be able to say that she’d gone down with a fight. Her thoughtless quest for glory had left her son without a mother. Andromeda hated them both then. Then she’d realise that the person she hated was herself. They had only left because she let them. Why hadn’t she tried harder? Why hadn’t she hidden Ted at home? Why hadn’t she locked Nymphadora in her bedroom and told her, “ _You are not going to the castle. I forbid it. I am your mother and I am ordering you to stay here_ ”? She should have told them that family stuck together. That they had survived a war once and they would do so again. There was no need for either of them to play the hero. Ted, Remus and Nymphadora had lumbered Teddy alone with his pathetic, apathetic, alcoholic grandmother. They have not only broken Andromeda’s heart, but her spirit and, sometimes, her mind. How is she supposed to be herself again after this loss? She is barely a person at all, let alone the person resembling the woman she used to be.

She gets angry at Teddy too. He’s a Metamorphmagus, and on a bad night Andromeda will lean over his cot, staring at the way Teddy’s hair changes and willing him: _Change everything. Don’t be yourself. Be her._ She says his name aloud and sobs because he is the wrong Teddy. She wants _her_ Ted, not this one. She wants her _child_ , not this one. _Change. Be her. Be her._ Some nights Andromeda wants to scream it at him.

She knows she is becoming ugly. Drinking so much wine is making her fat- ironic, since she’d spent years nagging Ted about his beer belly. Grief has given Andromeda wrinkles, and there are constant bags under her eyes. She knows it’s a frivolous, selfish thing to get caught up on, but on a bad night Andromeda catches sight of her reflection and could weep at the sight of the puffy, haggard woman looking back at her. She goes out with Eliza Macmillan every few weeks, but she no longer has the enthusiasm to choose a dress to wear. Andromeda used to like make-up, but she can’t be bothered with it now. There is nobody to look nice for, not even herself. Andromeda knows that Eliza is doing her best to cheer her up and get back to normal, but neither of them know how. Nothing can normal again, and there is no point pretending. Often, Andromeda can barely come up with anything to say to Eliza. She realises that, in the almost thirty years she was married to Ted, she forgot that the Macmillans are actually his friends-- she’d just merged in with them. Now Ted has gone, Andromeda feels out of place with the Macmillans, even notwithstanding the fact that she’s suddenly become a surrogate parent of a tiny baby. She doesn’t belong anywhere anymore. She is alone.

On a bad night, Andromeda struggles to remember her family properly. She can imagine Nymphadora in her school uniform, but she’s unsure if the image is real, or one she has made up. Did Nymphadora have pink hair when she was fourteen? Or was it blue? Or black? Often, Andromeda finds herself imagining what Ted would say, then asking herself _would he really? Would he say that? Or is that_ you _talking to yourself via your dead husband?_ She wants to remember them as they were, not blurred through time or grief.

On a bad night, Andromeda remembers them perfectly. The exact way Sirius carded his fingers through his hair. The stresses Remus put on words, flatter than a Cardiff accent but stronger than a Wrexham one. The precise noise Ted made when he threw himself onto the sofa after a day at work. The feel of her daughter’s muddy, quaking nine-year-old body felt when Andromeda hugged her after Nymphadora broke her ankle playing on the riverbank. Every line of the conversation she had with Nymphadora the night Teddy wasn’t feeding, and Andromeda stayed up trying to teach them both how to latch. She can see them, hear them, smell them so clearly, that remembering they are dead feels like losing them all over again.

Those are the bad nights, when white wine inspires fury, pain, vanity, memory and despair. On a good night, Andromeda just feels numb.


	7. Cider

_Ogmore-by-Sea, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales_

_1951_

Carefully, Alphie picks up the tray and walks back over to the table in the cordoned-off section of the Goblin's Tooth. The pub is noisy, buzzing with chatter and laughter. It's the evening of the last day of the Quidditch season, and the Glamorgan Ogres are staying up. A group of fans are chanting it in the corner of the pub: "We! Are! Staying up, yeah we are staying up!"

Alphie doesn't sit with the fans. He's walking back to the roped-off section of the pub especially for the team. He walks through the magical barrier separating the team from the rest of the pub, and lays the tray of drinks down on the table.

"Got the right order in this time, did ya?" shouts Fergus Abercrombie, reaching over to tousle Alphie's hair. Fergus does that a lot, and it makes Alphie uncomfortable because Fergus is a Muggle-born. A Mudblood. So are Yondala St Ives, Beater, and Nadia Edwards, substitute Keeper. Mudbloods don't belong in the wizarding world, and certainly not on their Quidditch teams, so Alphie's ashamed to admit that he counts Fergus, St Ives and Edwards as his friends. He often worries about what his family would say if they knew he spent so much time with Mugg- Mudbloods. Often, Alphie worries about what being friendly with Mudbloods is doing to _him._ Is he letting down the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black?

Tonight's not a night for worrying, though. Tonight's a night for drinking and celebrating. The team grab their drinks from the tray, and Alphie takes a sip from the cider he bought for himself. Father taught him to always buy his round of drinks, though Alphie's only been able to do so with his own money for a couple of years. It's still a thrill to be able to say, "Next round's on me," and pay for it with coins from his own wallet.

"Says you, after you dropped that catch last week!" chirps Knox Jonston, Seeker. Knox caught the Snitch while flying backwards in this afternoon's match. Alphie's sure it'll be Season's Best Catch. He feels proud of Knox, proud of the team, and proud to be part of this world of sports and bars and cider. When Alphie was a boy, he dreamed of becoming a professional Quidditch player. A Beater probably, since he was built big. When Alphie and his father went to watch their local team, the Banbury Gnats, Alphie had imagined himself flying up in the air with the players, a Quidditch hero, and back home he'd would practise on his toy broomstick. Father said that Alphie would make a fine Beater one day.

Cygnus ruined it, of course. When Alphie's little brother turned five, Father decided that that was old enough to come to Quidditch matches too. Alphie felt furious that Cygnus had intruded on his special time with Father. Moreover, when Alphie and Cygnus re-enacted their favourite parts of the match at home on their toy broomsticks, it became clear that Cygnus was a better payer than Alphie. He was three years younger but already a better flier, thrower and catcher, and more skilled with a Beater's bat too. Alphie was only eight, but he knew that if he was up against boys like Cygnus, he'd never be a Quidditch player. He stopped practising on his toy broomstick and started reading matchday programmes and Quidditch magazines instead. Alphie started to learn the names and numbers of players, and at matches he'd tell Father and Cygnus facts about them. Instead of looking up at the players with envy, Alphie started observing them with scientific interest, working out which was a Wronski Fein and which was a Brazilian Lift. He began to study the league tables and goal records. Alphie wasn't good enough to become a Quidditch player, but he could make himself a Quidditch expert.

Alphie was nervous about going to school. He knew that all wizards and witches his age would be too, but for Alphie it was different, because by the time he was eleven it was clear that Alphie wasn't…well, clever. "Retarded", Walburga said, and though Mother told her off for that, Alphie knew that his brain didn't work the way other people's did. Letters and numbers jumbled together on the page in front of him. The puzzles and lessons his governess gave him were boring. Alphie couldn't remember dates from history or his seventeen times table. Why did galleons have to go into sickles into knuts anyway? Why couldn't there just be one coin?

"You remember Quidditch scores well enough," Father said, "Why can't you remember which way a J goes?"

But Alphie couldn't, and he couldn't do multiplication and subtraction, and he couldn't make his 5s stop looking like squashed, upside-down 2s. At first everybody said he wasn't trying, but as Alphie got older and Cygnus began to surpass him at lessons as well as Quidditch, Alphie's family had to admit that there was a problem. Alphie was both desperate to go to Hogwarts, and frightened that when he got there he'd be known as Alphard The Idiot.

"You're a Black," Father told him, straightening Alphie's robes on the station platform as they waited for the Hogwarts Express, "You deserve deference. Don't let anybody make you feel foolish,"

"But he _is_ foolish," sneered Walburga, who was starting her fourth year and becoming nastier and surlier by the day. Alphie was worried, too, about ending up being only known as Walburga's Little Brother.

Father ignored her, and promised Alphie, "You'll find a subject you're good at, my boy. Wandwork, herbology, potions- there'll be something,"

He straightened up, clapped Alphie on the shoulder and repeated, "You're a Black,"

Alphie knew that what Father meant was that Blacks were special and sacred. They were above other people. But once term started, it became clear that Alphie was as good at wandwork, herbology and potions as he was at reading and writing. Walburga was right- he was a foolish, retarded bonehead. He was a Black by name, but without any of the prowess that members of his family were supposed to possess. However, Alphie's Quidditch knowledge helped him avoid being known as Alphie Idiot or Walburga's Brother. Calix Gibbon, who slept in the bed beside Alphie, saw his Banbury Gnats scarf, and asked if that was Alphie's team. Palgrave Nott snorted that the Gnats were playing hopelessly this season. Remembering that he was a Black, Alphie puffed out his chest and pointed out that, actually, the Gnats had won the league four times this decade, and it was only in the last two seasons that they'd gone downhill.

"Their goals-per-season average is higher than Puddlemere," Alphie insisted.

"Quidditch geek, are you?" asked Sol Sullivan.

Alphie crossed his arms. "Yes,"

And so, he became Alphie Black: Quidditch Geek. And he liked it. It wasn't as cool as being known as the rebel or the funny one, it wasn't impressive like being clever, and it since Alphie wouldn't make the team it wouldn't give him any status in Slytherin. However, knowing endless Quidditch trivia was just enough for Alphie to establish an identity for himself. The reputation for Quidditch knowledge stuck with him through school, and it was enough for him to make and keep friends, even when he had to repeat first-year. Walburga dropped hints that the only reason Alphie passed the second time was because of Father's influence and money. Alphie's never asked about that, though by the time NEWTs rolled round, it was clear that friends, influence and money wouldn't be enough. Not even a Black could get a Ministry job with only a couple of As at NEWT. Alphie wasn't bright enough to pursue healing or working with magical creatures, and he wasn't business-savvy, creative or adventurous either. There'd barely been anything at school that he'd been decent at. As his friends looked through pamphlets suggesting training security trolls, working in foreign relations, or applying to the Magical Confectionery Standards Agency, Alphie watched and thought dejectedly that he didn't have the brains for any of those. During his careers advice session, Professor Slughorn suggested that Alphie make a list of things he was good at, and all Alphie could think of was:

  * Quidditch trivia
  * Daydreaming
  * Keeping his bedroom and dormitory tidy
  * Loud burps



Not enough to start a career in anything.

Alphie started to drink. He'd always enjoyed Common Room parties (not like Walburga, who stormed off to her dormitory to miss the fun), but as the panic set in, Alphie started downing cider at a more furious rate. He became a rougher, bolshier drunk: more obnoxious to his friends and more standoffish to people he didn't like. Alphie grew more disdainful towards Cygnus, who was fourteen, scrappy, handsome, and still better than Alphie at everything. More than once, Alphie's friends had to drag him away before he and Cygnus began a physical fight. Alphie got so drunk at graduation that he barely remembers the day now. What followed was a dreadful two years of watching his friends get jobs, make friends at work, earn their own money, move out and begin adult life. Alphie moved back into his bedroom at home. At first, his parents had tried to find tasks for him to do: re-organising bookshelves, beating the house-self when she needed punishing, writing cards to his cousins, running errands to Diagon Alley. Though Alphie's activities were hampered by having failed his apparition test, leaving him reliant on Floo (Blacks did not travel on the Knight Bus). Alphie went for walks in the woods, finding the most secluded areas to fly his broomstick in. He tried attacking Muggles a couple of times, but didn't manage to inflict much damage. After a few months, his parents ran out of jobs to keep him occupied, so Alphie spent most days sleeping late, flicking through Quidditch magazines, drinking cider, wanking, listening to the radio, and staring out of the window feeling bitter and hopeless. What was wrong with him? Was he born an idiot, or had he been kicked in the head by a horse when he was a baby, and Mother and Father had never told him?

Some of Alphie's friends were married off, either by choice or for convenience, and at their weddings guests would ask Alphie what he did. If they'd asked his name, which they usually had, they'd know he was a Black, so would expect him to be a banker, or working his way up through the Ministry, or studying further. Alphie wanted to melt into the floor when he had to confess that he didn't have a job. Though at least there was always plenty of booze at weddings.

Months went by. Cygnus passed his OWLs with Es and Os. Walburga, tetchy and mean as she was, was publishing articles and doing work for the Protection of Pureblood Rights Society. Alphie festered at home.

One evening, two years after they left Hogwarts, Palgrave Nott persuaded Alphie out for a drink. Palgrave had a job at the printworks in Arcasion Alley and had got two promotions in the last year, so Alphie had tried to avoid meeting him one-on-one for months. But Palgrave was persistent, and Alphie ended up agreeing just to stop him owling.

"My sister could get you a job," Palgrave drawled over cider in the Snuffling Walnut.

"I don't need charity," Alphie growled.

"Alph, it's been two years. You'll have to do _something._ Even you can't live off your family's money forever,"

Alphie launched himself across the table and grabbed Palgrave by the collar, "What did you just say?"

"I said that you're going to have to stop sulking and start earning a living," said Palgrave coolly.

Alphie shoved him back into his seat and scowled.

"Let me help you," continued Palgrave haughtily, "What's the one thing you were always good at at school?"

"Nothing,"

"No,"

"I know about Quidditch," Alphie relented.

"And you never left our dormitory a tip like the rest of us did,"

Palgrave left a silence.

"So?" Alphie asked begrudgingly.

"Do you know what my sister does?" asked Palgrave, with an infuriating smile on his lips.

Alphie didn't reply.

"She's a Mediwitch for the Glamorgan Ogres. Their groundskeeper just left,"

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you could do it," Palgrave cried, "You could take that groundskeeper job,"

"Don't be stupid,"

"Why not? You love Quidditch and you're good at keeping stuff tidy,"

"A dormitory isn't a Quidditch ground,"

"It's only the Ogres, Alphie, I'm not asking you to groundskeep for England,"

Alphie sat up and puffed his chest out, "I'm a Black. We don't do work like that,"

"Blacks aren't supposed to be retarded either, but look at you," sneered Palgrave. Alphie wanted to grab Palgrave again for calling him that, but Palgrave rushed on, "I'm trying to _help_ you. Here. Her name's Watnage. Write to her,"

He scribbled an address down and slid it across the table to Alphie. Alphie crumpled the parchment into his pocket and changed the subject, but, once he'd Flooed home that evening, he looked at it again. Meeting with Palgrave had left him tense and tetchy- all the more so because he knew that Palgrave was right. Alphie had known that he was living a boring, impotent existence that had lasted too long and couldn't continue forever, but hearing Palgrave say so was different. Alphie stared at the parchment with Watnage Nott's address on. Groundskeeping for a Quidditch team was beneath Alphie. To submit to Palgrave's suggestion would be admitting defeat. _But,_ Alphie confessed to himself, _I would enjoy it._ He certainly hadn't enjoyed the last two years. Was it a direct battle between pride and having a shot of happiness? Alphie wasn't sure. _Wouldn't hurt if I were to find out, would it? It's just a letter._

Alphie slept on the decision, and in the morning he sat at his seldom-used bedroom desk and concentrated hard on his spelling and handwriting to write Watnage Nott a letter. Two days later, she replied.

That was three years ago now, and Alphie hasn't looked back. He comes to the ground every day to perform his tasks: flying the eagle around the ground to scare off pigeons, checking the pressure of the bludgers and quaffles, making sure everything's ready for the team to train. There isn't much demeaning work, since the house-selves do most of the cleaning and tidying. On match days, Alphie sits in the top box, along from the manager, journalists, promoters and Watnage Nott's Mediwitch and healer team. He meets all the Quidditch teams the Ogres play- he's even friendly with some of the Banbury Gnats. After matches, Alphie, the Ogres and some of the staff go for drinks at the Goblin's Tooth, and then Alphie Floos home to his flat above the clubhouse. The Quidditch League provide a handful of staff tickets to the Summer and Christmas parties, and Alphie always attends. They're not the type of fancy work parties his parents and brother attend, but Alphie still feels proud to be included in this part of wizarding society.

"What you daydreaming about, Pitch?" Fergus asks, elbowing Alphie in the ribs. Alphie jolts- he hadn't realise that he'd drifted off. "Pitch" is Alphie's nickname here; pitch as in Black, and because he takes care of the Quidditch pitch. Father would be cross if he knew Alphie had a nickname which is a reference to the manual work he does, and a corruption of their sacred surname. For the last three years, Alphie's parents veered between relief that Alphie's found employment and independence at last, appalled that he's doing such a menial job. Alphie hasn't told them how close friends he is with the team, or how many Muggle-borns play for the Ogres. Thankfully, his parents are busy back home, fussing over Cygnus' baby daughter and trying to find somebody to marry Walburga, that they don't take much notice of what Alphie does.

"Nothing," Alphie shrugs.

"Head in the clouds, as usual," says Fergus, giving Alphie a friendly elbow in the ribs.

"That's you, mate, flying into that rain in the first half!" chips in Aneurin Sprout.

"You could have _warned_ me I was heading for it,"

"You should have looked,"

"Remember when Fergus used to wear goggles to fly?" giggles Roo Mazrahi.

"Ha! I'd forgotten about that," laughs St Ives.

"Who cares about that cloud, we're staying up, boys!" Fergus insists.

"And girls," adds Edwards.

"Women," corrects St Ives.

"Fine, boys and women," Fergus huffs.

"And whatever you are," sneers Martha Ducker.

The Glamorgan Ogres' banter is different to the way the Black family verbally spar, and from the jokes and banter back in the Slytherin Common Room. Lots of things about Alphie's world here is different to the world he grew up in, and that doesn't always sit comfortably with him (Alphie uses Fergus' momentary distraction as an opportunity to shift away from him and his Mudblood hands). That discomfort can be puzzling, because it sits alongside the happiness and acceptance Alphie feels here. Alphie isn't _in_ the Ogres team, but he's one _of_ them. They're his friends and this is his world. Here in Glamorgan, he has a job, a flat, a social life, a purpose, and independence. Nowadays, Alphie's drinking isn't from misery and boredom- it's for fun and celebration and to feeling part of something. He's no longer festering. Alphie Black is, well, flying.

Alphie grins, and takes another sip of his cider.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading. Feedback would be lovely, so please leave a comment. Thanks a lot.


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